Pakistan frees top Taliban leader

Afghan Taliban fighters are being urged to end their insurgency Pakistan has released its most senior Afghan Taliban detainee, the group's co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. The move comes after persistent requests by the Afghan government which hopes it will help the peace process in the country. Mullah Baradar is one of the four men who founded the Taliban movement in Afghanistan in 1994. He became a linchpin of the insurgency after the Taliban were toppled by the US-led invasion in 2001. He was captured in the Pakistani city of Karachi in 2010. "Baradar has been released," Omar Hamid of the Islamabad interior ministry told the news agency, AFP. Destination unknown It is not clear where Mr Baradar will travel to after his release . He may go to a third country, possibly the United Arab Emirates. More than 30 Taliban leaders have been released from Pakistani jails in recent months. But correspondents say the releases of those Taliban detainees have not had much impact on the peace process. A political adviser to the Kabul government team which addresses the issue of Taliban peace negotiations, Ismail Qasim Yar, told the BBC that Mullah Baradar was "an ambassador for peace". Mr Baradar was one of founding fathers of the Taliban and held several senior positions in their government before its fall in 2001. He then fled to Pakistan and for some years was the Taliban's military commander as they regrouped to fight a guerrilla war. Mullah Baradar was reportedly arrested in a secret raid by CIA and Pakistani agents. The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says releasing one of the founders of the Taliban and a mastermind of the Afghan insurgency, may seem a counter-productive step for the Kabul government and the US-led coalition. But Mullah Baradar has been seen as one of the few senior Taliban figures who has shown a willingness to negotiate, our correspondent says. Afghan diplomats had suggested Pakistan was trying to hinder the reconciliation process by backing more hardline elements within the Taliban. BBC © 2013